Home
by Magical Maeve
Summary: Rowena Ravenclaw is a child of the earthy Scottish glens, but there's something different about her. No matter how hard and for how long she tries to deny her past, it's coming for her and it's going to be magic.
1. Chapter 1

The moon had glossed the lake with a sheen that reflected the heavens back on themselves. Trees fringed its edge; tall pines dipped and nodded in the faint breeze cascading down from the ponderous hilltops. These hills stood guard over the sprawling habitation known as Winterseam. Snow had come early to this aptly-named settlement, and the young girl who stood looking out into the darkness enjoyed the shimmering contrasts around her.

She allowed her long, thin fingers to slide along the lowest branches of a slender birch, removing the icy crust and leaving naked bark where before had been a cloak of diamond-white snow. The cold bit at her bare hands, but she didn't mind; she was of hardy stock. Her clansmen had farmed this region for centuries, becoming so attuned to the land and the changing year that they were as much a part of it as the trees that provided them with wood or the lake that supplied their fish. She was of this place; its essence sang through her blood and found an outlet in her lyrical voice. For a child of eight, she had a remarkable ability to create songs without accompaniment. They flowed from her like an effervescent waterfall, dropping clear notes into the ears of any fortunate listeners.

Her voice was silent that night, for she had not come to give a performance. The child's intention was to find better entertainment than her own limited repertoire. She knew that there had been the promise of activity by the Dead Stream for days now. A ring of mushrooms had sprouted several weeks after they should all have been gone, and they had flourished and grown beyond all natural expectations. Her biggest worry was that Lachlan, her brother, would happen across them and attempt to pick the fleshy fungi. Her fears had been unfounded, for no one ever strayed towards the Dead Stream unless they had good cause to do so. The last time one of the clan had ventured in the direction of the dirty water and treacherous mud banks had been when the white bull had gone missing and they had to search every part of the valley, including all the places they usually avoided.

No, the child was quite sure she was alone and would be able to enjoy the magic in peace. Her family did their best to acknowledge the realms beyond their own, but in truth, they were very half-hearted about it. She knew that had they paid more court to the Urisk, they would not be struggling with the roof for the sixth time in as many weeks. No matter how many times they attached the sods of earth, they still came loose in the slightest breath of air. Her father cursed the turf for being too thin and lacking substance; he did not listen to his young daughter as she advised him to leave out extra milk and perhaps some bread. He was a man who believed in only one being beyond his own experience, and that was the Christian God and his son the Christ child.

They had not believed her when she said there was something wrong with Ruairidh's pretty new wife. She had seen the young woman bathing in the lake; seen her webbed toes and the way she thrust through the water like no human she had ever seen. The child knew what she was, yet she was unheard, for who wanted to hear that the son of the chieftain was married to a Selkie. These creatures were beautiful, but often mournful, and longed for the sea with all their heart. She thought it was cruel of Ruairidh to keep the seal pelt buried beneath their home, away from his wife and her freedom. Had the child been braver, she might have dug up the pelt, brushed the Scottish mud from it, and returned it to its pitiful owner.

Rowena, for such was her name, born under the pale full moon of a November night to a mother who had made much use of the Rowan's bark to alleviate her sickness during pregnancy, slithered along the banks of the stream and caught hold of some roots to bring her progress to a halt. Dark hair obliterated her sight for a moment before she pushed it back and had a clear view over the mouth of the stream as it disgorged into the main body of the lake. The moon was a kind mistress, she reflected as she watched its light lend a magical lustre to the water. The sun, he was harsh, burning away the top surface of the lake and creating a haze that hid all. He left the grass and the trees parched and dying, he harried the clouds and sent them scudding away; he hated the clan at times, of that she was sure. Her dark eyes looked up and felt the full benevolence of the white circle that bathed the settlement in much-needed light.

It was only the beginnings of a rustle and then it was gone. A bell-like sound fluttered through the night chill, yet Rowena paid it no attention. If she flattered them into thinking that she was interested, they would taunt and tease and she would see nothing. The first time she had witnessed such a thing, she had squealed with delight and then found that her hair was being pulled with such force she felt it would be torn from her head entirely. Hidden hands had pushed her into the stream; prodding, sharp fingers digging at her bones mercilessly. Any ordinary child would have abandoned the scene, screaming for their mother, but Rowena picked herself out of the stream and found that within minutes she was dry.

The teasing lessened as she learned to control her reaction. Now, she could attend a gathering and not receive so much as a hiss in her ear. Sometimes they were subdued affairs, and Rowena had not yet grown to understand why some were and some weren't. The lights that skimmed the stream promised something of a celebration tonight; lashes of blues and lilacs danced across the surface of the gloomy water and she settled herself behind a gorse bush. Within minutes the air was filled with the rush of wings and a high-pitched cackling soured the air. Seven figures were creating a web of light as they flashed furiously through the trees and then stopped to hover over the water. Their wings were the source of the coloured light, and Rowena smiled to see such prettiness. It was a glamour on them, she knew, that made them seem pretty. When their wings stopped dancing and they were not in the mood to shine, they were the ugliest little things imaginable. Their skin was the colour of aged lichen, with bumps and lumps covering their small, pinched faces. It was their dancing and music that made up for their visual deficiencies, however. It transfixed her, brought her to a new world in which anything was possible. Most importantly, it made her forget the chores of the farm. Here, she did not have to rise early to be kicked by the cows she attempted to milk. Sheep did not shun her or horses lead her a most un-merry dance around a mud-weary field.

The tiny fiddles and pipes picked up a new tune, faster, more urgent. It rippled through the bare trees and followed the stream, fanning out and covering the lake with sound. Rowena moved slightly, disturbing the shimmering magic. This was a new development; seldom did they allow their music to bleed beyond the Dead Stream. A heaviness obscured the moon and she looked heavenward to see a blustering blackness toying with the white light. This mass then swooped down and the furious music was replaced with high-pitched shrieks and screams. Bewildered by the sudden confusion, Rowena struggled to her feet and tried to retreat into the safety of the trees, but she slipped against the smooth ice and fell backwards. The exposed roots prodded at her back and made her gasp in pain and the sharp sensation mingled with the chill of the ice melting through the rough fabric of her dress.

The darkness was swinging down, falling closer and closer towards her. The fairy music had been replaced by what sounded like a million bees swarming above her; the buzzing intense and vigorous. The host moved as one although it was not one, something she realised as it paused, regrouped and then noticed her. She could not quite understand how something that resembled a black plume of smoke was capable of noticing a small, human child, but it swelled before her, breaking into several strands as parts broke away to follow the terrified fairies that were busily fleeing the scene.

What had previously been mere cold air was now filled with a different tang; sweetness filled her nostrils and made her cough bright clouds of breath into the atmosphere. She finally found her feet and forced herself to stand and face the interloper. Shoving a handful of hair from her face and trying to stop her teeth from clattering together like hooves on hard ground, Rowena looked directly at the top of the plume and spoke.

"Whoever you are, you can let me be. I'm just a wean from the village and nothing to you. I'll let you in peace if you let me in peace." Her chin tilted upwards in a gesture of bravery, even though her heart was careering around her chest.

The plume flickered a little, waving around as if convulsed, and then it fell to earth quickly, spreading itself along the ground at her feet. If Rowena had not been so fright-struck, she would have said it was laughing at her. She stepped back – the blackness was about to touch her toes – and waited for a good opportunity to run for safety.

"What form would you have me take?" The voice was brittle, almost fragile. It came from somewhere just below her right ear; glancing down she could see that a faint stream of the black thing had reached her and was quivering just short of her shoulder.

"You can take whatever form you like. I do not care. You're not from this place and I think you should go back to where you came from."

"They were not wrong about you." The smoke swirled higher, forming a circular cloak around her, eddying, bewitching. It faded from black to grey and then to silver, all the while giving off the odour of deep earth sluiced with a brackish tang. "You can see it at the back of your eyes; defiance."

"Let me alone!"

She stepped back and then yelled as if scalded. Her shoulders had made contact with the silver matter and had felt the burn of its power.

"I see I am alarming you. Let me become more acceptable to your narrow experience." It retracted, forming a narrow trunk that seemed to collapse in on itself. From this dense mist a dappled cloak suddenly burst forth, dark as the smoke had been but infinitely more corporeal. A hooded figure emerged, carried high on the back of a fine black horse, its face obscured by the thick fabric. With a breath of wind, the last of the smoke vanished leaving something in its wake that was tall and forbidding, but no longer intangible.

"I am here to see you safe home, child." It was a female voice, charred with an accent that Rowena did not recognise.

"I am home!"

"How touching. How brave. My dear human child." She removed the hood from her head and Rowena could not stay the gasp that fell from her mouth. Here was a creature the like of which was not seen in Winterseam. For all the darkness that had surrounded her, this woman's hair was of the brightest yellow and bound around the forehead with thin bands of gold so that it formed three tresses. Two curled up and about her head while the third fell away out of Rowena's sight. It framed a wide brow which topped dark eyebrows; an alarming contrast to her hair. Rowena had to stare deeply into her eyes before she realised what was so unusual about them; there were three irises in each. When the woman made to speak again, scarlet lips parted to reveal a line of teeth that quite took the child's breath away. Only children had such bright, whole teeth in her village. Most adults had worn theirs down by the time they reached full adulthood and had blackened them on a diet of dark fruits and ale.

"Who are you and what do you want of me. I was doing no harm. Just watching the wee ones like I do." Her natural defiance reasserted itself, making her brave in the face of this unknown threat.

"Your little friends have angered my companions, as you can see." She reached out a long arm in the direction of the fleeing fairies, the cloak splaying out in the wind. The horse shifted its position slightly at the movement, causing the woman to place her hand upon its neck in a gesture of deep patience. "They will learn a lesson from this night; you cannot steal Sidhe gold and expect to get away with it."

The words made little sense to Rowena; she had no knowledge of Sidhe, or of gold.  
>Gold was a foreign thing to her clan, a metal they saw little of.<p>

"That still doesn't tell me what you want with me."

"Want with you?" Her words dripped like melted butter into the cold night. "It is not a question of want. I am Fedelm, one of the Sidhe, and a prophetess. I do not have wants." She drew closer, her cloak fluttering towards Rowena, tantalising in its denseness. "Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

"You speak in riddles," she replied. "I will go nowhere with you, least of all to the waters. I know what happens to us when we are dragged beneath the waters by the fairy folk."

"Then you will know that your fate lies there. You will know that there will be a lake and beside that lake will grow a monument to magic. You will know that each time you pass by this meagre water's edge" – here she gestured to the lake in the near distance – "you will feel the pull of it in your heart and in your mind and you will know that you have turned from a path on which you were destined to tread. You will know, human child, that within your body there flows our blood. You will know that there is more beyond your inadequate life of simple toil and struggle."

Rowena looked into her triple irises and saw towers and the fluttering of a banner. She was given a small, swirling vision of a life less mundane. Rolling around in triplicate was her future and yet she could not fully grasp the import of what this strange and beautiful creature was telling her.

"My future is with my family. I will marry a farmer and will live with him and our animals here. There is nothing beyond this valley for such as me."

"My child, there is always more than the eye betrays. One day you will see it all spread before you like a banquet on which you shall feast. But I see that you are not ready and will let it be for now. Mark well the way the wind sighs about us and the warmth you feel within your heart, for this is your legacy. You are part Sidhe; time will bring you back to us."

"This makes no sense!" Rowena suddenly felt a violent shift in her heart. The fear she had initially felt was dying and the first prick of belonging punctured her skin. "You do not speak plainly."

"In time, child. It is a great and tiresome thing for we Sidhe to leave our home and cross the water. One of us will come back for you; if you are not ready then, we will wait until you are. Good night, child. Sleep well in your bed, for the morning awaits you."

She left. One moment her golden hair lit the night and the next she had dissolved into the ground at her feet. Rowena blinked a few times to makes sure her eyes did not betray her, and sure enough, the woman was gone. Silence reigned across the valley, giving away nothing of what had just occurred. With a weight on her shoulders that she could not shift, Rowena made her way home. She stole silently into her bed and enjoyed the rough kiss of the blankets as she struggled to find warmth on that cold night.

In time, she forgot the woman. The warmth of the strange fairy's presence left a shadow on her soul and scarred the girl with a vague longing for something she could not possess; for the most part she managed to ignore it, but sometimes it caught up with her and she would look towards the hills and wonder what she had denied herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunlight peppered the hillside with bronze, bringing light to the flaming gorse. Rowena turned her head and revelled in its warmth. Her love of the sunlight had grown over recent years and with it so had her body. She was no longer the pale child who crept around in shadow and moonlight; now, she hid from it and longed for the bright beneficence of the sun She carried with her a sack of feed for the horses slung across her strong back, her long legs making little work of the steep incline. Several of the beasts loitered at the far side of the field, flicking tails and sly glances at each other. Upon her approach they raised their heads with interest and made move towards the bearer of their feast. The grass was hard now, December in the full vice of winter's ice, and they were glad of the extra feed. Rowena knew that even though the animals were essential to the well-being of the clan this amount of feed was an indulgence on her Angus' part. He treated his horses better than he treated the people that depended on him. Her breakfast had been a hard piece of bread and some mouldering cheese washed down with weak ale.

"Here!" she called, the word breaking the winter's quiet. "Away and get your feed!"

A rumble of hooves against earth followed and they crowded around the trough as she tipped the oats and bran into it. Hot horseflesh pressed against her, forcing Rowena to make hasty her retreat from the field.

"Greedy wee devils," she muttered, swinging skirts and legs over the fence. "Oh!"

She was not alone. Even worse than not being alone, she found herself accompanied by a stranger.

"You are lost, sir?" she said, dropping gracefully from the fence to stand facing him. "I do not ken your face and I see you are wearing better clothes than we have seen these past years."

"I am not lost, Rowena. I am far from lost."

She started at the use of her name, being of the opinion that a stranger knowing your name without an introduction was not a good portent. "You've me at a disadvantage for I do not know your name."

"My name is not important. You would not recognise it if I told you." His dark eyes watched her; no, she thought, not watching, they are cutting through me like Angus' axe through a tree's belly. "I am come to discover if the child is ready to see her future."

A memory stirred. Moonlight, fear and longing all moved slowly across her mind's plateau. She had forgotten something, something important, and now that she needed to remember it she found her memory failed her.

"I don't…"

"Then you are not ready." He had such a look of sadness on his face that Rowena gathered herself against her weak memory and willed something, anything, to return to her.

"Fedelm." The name was the only thing she could manage, and when she spoke it she found herself surprised by elation at its recollection.

The laugh he gave was riven with triumph. "The child has her remembrances still. And do you recall what Fedelm told you?"

"She spoke of water and of my future. I did not understand then, and I understand even less now. I have my place by the water. My future is here." The wind rose about them; her hair fought free of its bindings and several strands conspired to hide her face. "Are you of her kind?"

"I am Midhir." The look of incomprehension on her face made him smile, and she found she enjoyed the warmth that his smile provoked in her. "I told you it would mean little to you. You see me as a stranger, yet it is you who is the stranger to your own self. Come with me."

Rowena thought of Angus, could see his hard body bending to crack the wood so that they could live. Fuel and trade all came from Angus' hands and put food on their table. She was to be married to him soon enough; the whole clan were looking forward to the celebration. Still, this beckoning was insidious.

"What will you show me, Midhir? Will I see a future greatly planned for me? Will you trick me into your world and keep me there while I sleep soundly in this one?"

He laughed loudly, a glad sound that broke their horses from their feed and made her look to the ground for fear she would join him in the merriment.

"Who are you, Rowena Ravenclaw of Winterseam? Are you a timorous child or a woman whose mind is beyond that of those with which she shares her life? Can you see something in my eyes that reminds you of some other place?"

"I can see only your eyes." A further memory; turrets and banners and Fedelm's eyes surfaced, yet she preferred his eyes. Deep as a dream and brown as dying heather, they watched her with no guile.

"Of course you can. I do not have Fedelm's trick with the future. Did she tell you anything of substance; I know she can be a conundrum when the mood takes her to be so."

Rowena found that the image of Angus had faded. "She told me my future was by the water. As you can see" – she gestured down to the basin of the valley – "I have all the water I need here."

"Come with me and let me show you another body of water. She said you were not ready when you were small, but you have grown beyond such doubts, I feel."

"I could not leave—"

"Leave the beasts and your burden? What would you leave behind but strife?" He had moved closer, his green cloak brushing the ground and fetching new growth from dead seed. Still, he did not touch her.

"I am to be married."

Midhir's face darkened at that and a furrow appeared beneath his brows. "This is news indeed. To whom?"

"Angus McDougal. He is a good man who would keep me well."

"WELL!" His face paled as his words grew hot. "This is not your life. This is not the life that has been chosen for you. You have been given time enough to be innocent but now you must accept your future and leave this – this folly behind."

"I will leave naught behind." Rowena was nothing if not stubborn and now this failing came to the fore. "This is my place. I wish you people would stop bothering me and let me alone to live my own life. You tell me I am one of you yet I do not recognise your face or your name. I am a Ravenclaw of Winterseam and will always be so."

"Dagda preserve us from foolish women and their principles! So be it. I shall have to send someone else. I have failed this day, Rowena Ravenclaw, and I shall suffer for it. Think on that when you do finally come home."

A raven flashed across the hillside, coming so close to Rowena's face that she closed her eyes and raised her hand to deflect it. When she opened her eyes again, Midhir had gone and she was left to the cawing of the birds and the soft munching of the horses' mouths.

"This is what you get for dreaming of things beyond your ken, Rowena," she said to herself in a stern voice. "Men on mountainsides and women in forests." With long strides, she returned to her homestead and the warmth of the fireside. Whatever these people were, they were bothersome in the extreme.


End file.
